


Old Bones

by lecterisms



Series: Of All These Yesterdays [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: 'codgers cottaging' as per deadlys perfect summary, Established Relationship, Growing Old Together, Grumpy Old Men, Happy Ending, ItsStillBeautiful, M/M, Murder, Murder Tableaus, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, actual married murderhusbands, light angst finishing with fluff, major character death (not mains), oc lecter-graham dogs - Freeform, set 15ish years after the fall, very brief passing mention of pet death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 11:14:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20375821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lecterisms/pseuds/lecterisms
Summary: Jack and Hannibal had been near in age, and the obituary listed him as being sixty-eight when he passed. A nice long life, Will supposes, but empty of the love he had had when he was younger, when Bella was alive.A once in a lifetime love, Jack had once described it to Will, after she died.As he looks upon his own once in a lifetime love, he aches with understanding.





	Old Bones

**Author's Note:**

> for #itsstillbeautiful 2019! 
> 
> belongs to the same verse as Sick Puppy, but stands alone.
> 
> artwork by one of my absolute favorite people on this earth, [wholeanddeadly](https://twitter.com/wholeanddeadly.com)! follow them, read their fic, shower them with the love and affection they deserve ♡

The antique grandfather clock in the study chimes eleven times, and at the sound, Will Graham sighs.

“Come on, guys,” he says, speaking into the darkness as he crosses his arms over his chest to chase away the chill that his thin bathrobe doesn’t keep out, “It’s past our bedtime.”

He hears them first: three distinctly different pants and identification charms chiming on collars, before three shapes materialize from the darkness into the ring of light illuminating the back porch. The two youngest bound happily into the house when Will opens the door, tongues lolling and tails wagging as they chew playfully at each others ears. Cephie, Will’s first procurement once they had settled down after The Fall—capitalized always in his mind—brings up the rear, moving much more slowly than the others. He bends over to scoop him up when he makes it to Will’s feet to save him from having to climb up the stairs.

His joints aren’t what they used to be, now that he’s at least sixteen years of age. Neither are Will’s, for that matter, now that he’s well on the wrong side of fifty. His left knee creaks in protest as he reaches the top of the stairs and stoops again to place the scruffy little dog on his feet, watching with a small smile as he totters away after his much younger siblings, mostly by scent since his eyesight is almost gone. Will presses a hand to his back where it twinges as he straightens up once more, and follows the dogs into the house.

He locks the door behind him, and then wanders into the sitting room to assure all the dogs are settled into their beds for the night. He finds them all piled into one bed together, leaving the other two beds empty. Only Cephie is still awake, watching Will from the tangle of twitching limbs with eyes gone cloudy with age. Both man and dog yawn at nearly the same time, and satisfied that the dogs are well, he turns and leaves the room and heads for bed.

Climbing the stairs seems like a monumental task at the moment, and the couch he passes in the living room looks inviting, but he continues on his way. Partially because he knows at his age he would regret sleeping there in the morning, but mostly because of what he knows is waiting for him upstairs.

Sometimes, he still can’t quite believe it, and so he allows himself to linger in the doorway to the bedroom for a moment when he reaches it. There’s an old man sitting up in his bed reading, a thought that would have seemed awfully strange years ago, before Will found himself to be an old man as well. Hannibal’s hair is falling around his face, all gray now, and there are a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses perched low on his nose that glint in the low light of the bedside lamp. There are more wrinkles now than there were when they met, more scars still, but even after all the years that have passed between them the sight of the other man in his bed still causes Will’s breath to hitch in his chest.

The sound draws Hannibal’s attention away from his tablet, and he looks up at Will over the edge of his glasses. “Darling,” he greets, his voice warm and his eyes soft as he reaches up to pluck the spectacles from his nose, “I trust your pack is well?”

Will doesn’t bother correcting him with ‘our’, since things hadn’t been the same for Hannibal and his relationship with the dogs since his standard poodle, Opal, passed away from old age. Hannibal had been quietly devastated, and Will’s heart still aches for him and her loss alike. He’s so caught up in it for a moment that he almost misses the wariness that radiates off the other man, even though none of it shows on his face. Will can taste it in the air, acrid and sharp, and his brow furrows as he tilts his head to study his husband more closely.

“They’re fine,” he replies slowly, “But you’re not.” Hannibal doesn’t deny it, and Will watches as he tries to hide the way his gaze flickers uneasily to the tablet still glowing in his lap by putting his glasses back on. An old fear that has made itself less and less known as the years have gone by clutches up in Will’s chest: the fear that they’ve been found, that someone is coming after them, that he’ll have to spill blood to make sure they are safe. He has before, and would do it again in a heartbeat, _gladly;_ that question was put to rest the moment he took Hannibal over the cliff with him, that fateful night so long ago now. In an instant.

He opens his mouth to try to ask what’s wrong, but panic causes the words to seize in his throat. Hannibal already knows, though, of course he does, and he takes pity on Will, merely turning the tablet around and holding it out for Will to see.

It’s not Tattle Crime, which is somehow still running, since Freddie Lounds has somehow thus far managed to not get herself killed by the killers she writes about. Instead, as Will draws closer, he sees that it’s open to the obituary page of the Baltimore Sun.

Will looks up at Hannibal, to his mostly blank expression, and takes the tablet to read for himself. The man in the photograph looks nothing like the man Will left behind after deceiving him for the final time, but it’s him all the same. Thinner, grayer and more time-worn, yes—but the same dark, clever eyes, the same stormy perpetual frown. Will feels a surprising spasm of pain in his heart as he reads the brief obituary, the lack of family or children listed, and then hits the button to darken the screen and set the tablet aside.

Will plucks his glasses off his nose and runs a hand down his face, not knowing how else to react to the surprising lurch of sadness he feels. Without a word, he places the frames on the bedside table and strips off his robe, tossing it over a nearby armchair, able to see Hannibal’s slightly pursed lips in response to his carelessness without looking—it’s there in his mind’s eye like a photograph, after seeing it nightly for going on two decades, now, and has never once in all that time hung it in the closet like Hannibal would prefer.

Stripped down to his boxers, he sits heavily on his side of the bed, his back to Hannibal. He’s quiet for a moment, and Hannibal allows him his thoughts.

“Kind of thought he’d live forever,” Will finally says softly. After surviving Hannibal, surviving _them_, it seems impossible that something as innocuous as old age could bring him down.

Hannibal shifts amongst the sheets, and Will can hear the smile in his voice as he replies, “Jack Crawford always loomed larger than life for you, Will, but he was no immortal deity.”

Will smirks. “But he was as spiteful as one,” he replies, looking over his shoulder at Hannibal. Jack and Hannibal had been near in age, and the obituary listed him as being sixty-eight when he passed. A nice long life, Will supposes, but empty of the love he had had when he was younger, when Bella was alive. _A o__nce in a lifetime love,_ Jack had once described it to Will, after she died. As he looks upon his own once in a lifetime love, he aches with understanding.

Will looks down at his hands. The skin is wrinkled where it used to be smooth, knuckles permanently swollen and arthritic, scarred from various injuries they’ve sustained over the years. He still likes to work with them, when he can. Hannibal’s still look like the hands of an artist—long and willowy, capable fingers, palms smooth and soft having never seen a day of actual manual labor in his life. He sees them now as one snakes around his middle, fingers sinking into flesh that’s softened with time, tugging gently until Will obediently scoots back and up, settling against Hannibal with a sigh.

He closes his eyes, resting his cheek against Hannibal’s shoulder. Hannibal presses his lips against Will’s graying temple and breathes him in. He says nothing, just allows Will time to think, to process; patient, always so patient with him. He had been, in his own way, from the very start.

“It said he was cremated,” Will finally says at length, “Donations to the American Lung Cancer Society in Bella’s memory in lieu of flowers. No funeral, no memorial service. Nothing.”

Hannibal hums in agreement. He had, after all, read the obituary himself. “And this bothers you,” he murmurs.

“Yes,” Will replies, more testily than he means to. The single word has teeth, and his voice trembles. He sits up suddenly and turns, his back giving a half-hearted twinge at the sudden movement. He looks at Hannibal as he sits there in their bed in his ridiculous matching pajamas, with his silvery hair, the narrow reading glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose, the lines etched deep in that face that he has loved for as long as he can remember. Longer, even—he didn’t know how in love with him he was until he was already in far too deep to fight his way out, even if he wanted to.

He didn’t, not even when he still thought he did.

He wonders if Hannibal still remembers the moment _he_ fell in love. Hannibal forgets things sometimes, although Will pretends not to notice. It’s always little things, like the ending of some composition he used to have memorized, or an ingredient he discovers missing only when he gets home from the store, or occasionally whatever florid word he means to use whenever he’s waxing poetic about something mundane. Now, he often wonders when Hannibal will begin to forget bigger things. The dog’s names, _Will’s_ name. How they came to be what they are, where they are, _who_ they are.

Will feels himself succumb to a quiet but urgent panic every single time. He finds himself in such a state more often than not, lately. Will traversed the globe with Hannibal at his side years ago, leaving a wide swath of blood and death behind them wherever they went. They’ve had close calls, sustained more life-threatening injuries, had to pick up and run more than once with the long arm of the law swiping its claws at their heels as they went, and all the while Will was never once truly afraid. He had Hannibal, and Hannibal had him, and nothing else in the world mattered.

It’s almost funny that after the life they’ve led and all the things they’ve done, it’s taken them slowing down, putting down roots, and growing old and gray together for Will to finally grow fearful.

Now, everywhere he looks, he sees what he has to lose.

Hannibal is still looking at him—soft, warm eyes that haven’t changed a bit over the years. “You are upset because he died alone, with no one to miss him,” Hannibal posits, gentle. Will’s voice is lodged in his throat, and all he can do is nod. Hannibal takes his hand, brings it up to brush his lips against the thin skin covering his knuckles, rubbing the kiss in with his thumb when he pulls back to look into Will’s eyes and whispers, “You are not alone, Will.”

_Not yet_, Will wants to say. His eyes are burning, and his chest feels uncomfortably tight.

Hannibal only smiles, studying Will over the top edge of his glasses. “Do you truly believe dear Uncle Jack was ever truly alone?” he asks, lowering their twined hands to the bed between them and adding ruefully, “I imagine we were there with him in his mind, every day, until the bitter end.”

Will smiles, then, and the twist of his lips is a little bit cruel. He likes that idea, honestly—whatever loyalty he once had to Jack had died a spectacular, bloody death a long time ago. They were never truly friends, not really; Jack was always far too interested in how he could use Will, and Will was always raw from being used, like burned flesh that never got the chance to heal.

“Sometimes I think he was the only other person besides you who truly saw what I was capable of,” Will says softly.

“He was rather ready to believe the worst about you,” Hannibal concedes.

Will snorts and rubs at his eyes until he sees stars behind his lids. “So were you.”

“I saw the darkness in you and loved it,” Hannibal reminds him, “With immediacy. Ferocity.”

It would be a lie for Will to deny it was the same for him, even if years passed before he was willing to admit it to himself. “Jack had darkness in him, too,” he says instead, casting his eyes in the direction of the tablet, knowing if he pressed the button to illuminate the screen Jack would stare back at him with that same judgmental gaze Will had grown to know so well many years before. “He had it in him to kill,” he goes on, remembering, _remembering_, looking back at the past like old men like him are wont to do, and feels himself smiling fondly despite himself at the memories he dredges up—sitting in Jack’s office, scheming; Jack going to Hannibal’s house alone with the intention of walking out alone as well. “He wanted to kill you, premeditated, in cold blood,” he says, “Would have, if I hadn’t gotten in the way every time.”

“Then perhaps he saw the darkness in you much like I did,” Hannibal muses, “Because he already knew darkness so intimately.”

How, after all these years, hearing Hannibal say the word_ intimately_ in that velvety, accented voice of his can still make all the fine hairs at the nape of Will’s neck stand on end, he doesn’t know. He comes back to Hannibal, and Hannibal accepts him with open arms, as always, pulling him close. He plucks Hannibal’s glasses off his face, tosses them towards the foot of the bed, and allows Hannibal to pull him into a gentle, slow kiss. Between the slick presses of their lips, Hannibal muses, “Perhaps we should honor Jack, and his cleverness.”

Will smiles and nods, and kisses Hannibal again. “We would never have this without him,” he breathes out against his lips, before before pushing all thoughts of Jack Crawford away for the night, losing himself in the familiar slip of skin against skin, hearts beating in time—older and grayer, but still alive, _alive._

*

Hannibal is restless.

He wanders from room to room in their sprawling seaside home, nestled on a hillside in the south of France. Will had chosen this one, and perhaps it was for this reason that they had stayed there the longest—seven years and eight months, now. Hannibal could count it down to the very moment if he wanted to, since Will stood barefoot in the sands of their private beach the night they arrived here and smiled at him so soft and sweet, thanking him for purchasing it as if having everything he could possibly want shouldn’t have been his birthright.

Without him, the villa seems empty and lifeless. Even the dogs seem subdued, the younger two additions only bothering to lift their heads when Hannibal walks through the living area. Cephie, however, is searching for Will—as much as a mostly blind dog can search. Hannibal has spent an inordinate amount of time keeping the haggard creature from walking into walls.

He’s so lost in thought that he fails on this task, watching as the little terrier growls at the doorframe he didn’t see coming. Hannibal bends down to right him when he nearly falls over, and runs a soothing hand down his back, smoothing his wiry gray fur. “He is not here,” he tells the dog, and he would feel worse about talking to a _dog_ if he didn’t know he was assuring himself just as much, “He will be back soon, I promise. _He _promised.”

Cephie clearly doesn’t believe him, and marches on towards the kitchen to check there. Hannibal sighs.

He honestly can’t remember the last time they were apart. After a moment of contemplation, he does—more than a decade ago, when they had been forced to split up and travel separately when fleeing from St. Barts, when that young woman from the FBI had caught their scent—what was her name? Sparrow, Cardinal...something with a bird. He can’t recall at the moment. Will, his beautiful boy...Will had been as ravenous as an animal when they reunited in a seedy motel near the airport. This, Hannibal can remember like it was yesterday: the scent of his blood under Will’s nails, the sweat slicking both of their skin, the desperation in Will’s rough voice as he whispered his demand into Hannibal’s mouth over and over again.

_Promise you’ll never leave me again._

Hannibal had, and gladly. It had been much less gladly that he kissed Will goodbye at the door to their villa the day before, forcing his fingers to loosen their white-knuckled grip on Will’s shoulders and let him go, watching him climb into a yellow taxi with his leather bag packed and a plane ticket clutched in his hand before disappearing and leaving him alone, _alone_, in this house that lost its heartbeat the second Hannibal’s heart walked out of it.

But he could tell that Will needed this, for reasons that had little to do with the death of Jack Crawford, and so even though Hannibal curses himself for not hiding his death from Will completely he hopes this undertaking will ease the turmoil in his husband’s fascinating mind.

Hannibal cannot return to America ever again, and so Will had to go alone. Coincidentally, it was thanks to Jack Crawford that Will had never made it onto the Most Wanted lists that Hannibal still holds high rank on, even after all these years. He should, in theory, be able to slip in and slip out and be back on a plane overseas without incident—and he knows an incident is only thing that could keep them apart.

Hannibal wonders when, exactly, he stopped worrying that Will would leave and never return. He can’t seem to pinpoint that moment in time at the moment, either, but in the grand scheme of their lives together he decides it hardly matters.

He sighs again, earning droll looks from the dogs piled up on their beds in front of the fireplace, one of them letting loose a plaintive whine as if to remind him that he has things he should be doing. There are preparations to be made, the dogs to be dropped off at the Will-approved kennel, and a long train-ride ahead of him. Traveling is not as effortless as it once was.

“Come along, gentleman,” he says to them, watching as they clamor to their feet excitedly, Cephie toddling stiffly a few moments later into the room to join them, “It’s nearly time to go.”

*

Will arrives in Florence, a little worse for the wear from jetlag, his carry-on a little heavier over his shoulder than it had been when he departed. His quick trip to America was without incident, tickets and bribes paid in cash so that there would be no record of his presence.

It had taken surprisingly little to convince the funeral home listed in the obituary to turn over the box of ashes that no one else had bothered to claim.

In life, Jack Crawford was huge—a dark, looming presence that struck fear in the hearts of criminals and killers alike. Now, what remains of him is tucked in a leather bag amongst the dirty socks and boxers of one of the most prolific killers he never caught, on his way to rendezvous with the most prolific killer to ever get away.

Will makes his way down the gangway and through his gate, forcing his feet to move slower than they want to—despite his eagerness to arrive at his destination, his left hip, which has given him problems since it was pulverized in The Fall, is making its irritation known with each and every step.

He keeps his head down as he walks through the airport as he has long since trained himself to do, even though it is very unlikely that someone would see his scarred and lined face, his mostly gray hair and definitely gray beard, and make the connection between the old fart of a tourist they see now and the young man who disappeared along with Hannibal the Cannibal so long ago. He knows this, and so when he hears his name he stops in his tracks—not from fear, but from the visceral thrill he still feels roll through him like a crest of pounding waves even after all this time.

He looks up. If he wasn’t already looking for the face that matches the voice, he would miss him completely—he’s just another old man, now, after all. Dressed in a light linen suit that is ridiculous but somehow still suits him, with an even more ridiculous panama hat pulled at a low angle over his brow. Will is so fucking happy to see his face he wants to tackle him right there on the spot, but he knows from experience they’d pay for it for days if he indulged the urge.

Hannibal is smiling at him, in that minimalist way of his that only deepens the crinkles around his eyes, but says every bit as much as it would if a normal person was beaming. Will comes closer to him, drawn together as magnetically as ever, his heart thumping in his chest.

“We’re supposed to meet at the hotel,” he whispers, when he’s close enough for Hannibal to hear. It’s a risk, always has been, to be seen together in a place with as many cameras and watchful eyes as this. It’s the whole reason Will had to make this trip alone, why he’s spent the last forty-eight hours restless and upset, heart lurching every time he took a breath and realized he couldn’t smell Hannibal, every time he reached for him and couldn’t feel the warmth of his skin beneath his fingertips.

“I couldn’t wait any longer,” Hannibal replies simply. Will lets out a ragged breath like he had been holding it since he left Hannibal behind in France. Maybe he has, he doesn’t know. He nods jerkily, fights the urge again to do something to draw unnecessary attention to them both.

Instead, he forces his feet into movement again, Hannibal falling easily in stride beside him, heading out of the airport until Hannibal’s hand brushes his as they walk and Will can’t take it another minute. He detours abruptly into a nearby men’s room. Hannibal, of course, follows him without question—he always does. Has, for almost two decades now, since that night he followed him over the cliff.

The bathroom is blessedly empty, which seems like a tiny miracle neither of them have done anything to deserve. Will gets a hand in the front of Hannibal’s shirt and drags him into the farthest stall, slamming the door and locking it behind him, and then their mouths are pressed together and Will moans, pressing his eyes shut tightly, both of them speaking over one another, words tumbling out in shaking, desperate voices.

“_...missed you—”_

“_...lost without you, Will—” _

“_...I love you—”_

“_...promise you won’t leave me again—”_

“_...never, I’ll never—” _

It’s ridiculous. _They’re_ ridiculous. It’s barely been two days. They’re toxic and codependent and always have been, and he knows it, but he also knows without a doubt that no one has ever loved like they do and survived it as long as they have.

His hands tremble as he unbuckles his belt, and are full-on shaking by the time he gets Hannibal’s trousers around his thighs and presses him up against the tiled walls. They fuck there in the airport bathroom, spit-slick and fast and hard and dirty, like a couple of teenagers who don’t have a home and a bed of their own, like Will’s hip isn’t screeching in protest with every thrust.

Will comes in a hot rush, with his teeth in Hannibal’s shoulder to stifle the sounds he’s making and tears burning his eyes.

*

Will drops his bloodstained knife with a clatter, backs into a wall and slides down it. More accurately, he crumples, hand clasped to a stitch in his side, breathing heavily.

Hannibal finds himself woefully out of breath as well. He bends over, braces his hands on his knees and tries to regain control over his panting, watching as blood drips from a gash across the bridge of his nose down the tip, falling off to dot the concrete floor.

Will flattens out on the floor on his back with a ragged groan, just a few feet away from the growing pool of blood they spilled. “I’m too old for this shit,” he gasps out, chest heaving, “_We’re_ too old for this shit.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Hannibal rasps, still bent over his knees, “You were as radiant as you ever were, my love.”

Will barks out a ragged laugh, then begins to cough, rolling over on his side to spit out a mouthful of blood. “Fuck, Hannibal,” he manages once he’s stopped coughing, clutching at his stomach still, “He got a few good licks in. Wasn’t looking good there for a minute for either of us.”

Hannibal finally straightens, pressing his hand against the pinch in his lower back before he forces it away and drops it back down to his side. Just because he’s aged, now, doesn’t mean he can’t keep his iron-clad control over his body—the wounds and bruises he was just dealt not withstanding. He picks his way around the man they felled—half their age, he reminds himself, congratulatory—and comes to a stop at Will’s side.

He offers Will his hand, which he takes, but uses it to tug Hannibal down to him instead of rising. Hannibal goes, obedient to his boy as he has always been, knees creaking as he lowers himself to kneel at his side.

“Are you injured?” Hannibal asks, looking him over. The man they killed—one that Will picked out after reading news stories about the home nurse euthanizing elderly patients after swindling them out of their savings, who managed to get off on a technicality—hadn’t been armed, but Will is still gasping for breath like a landed fish.

He shakes his head, hand still wrapped tight around Hannibal’s. “You’re bleeding,” he manages to say, eyes flickering over Hannibal’s nose, where a well-placed punch had split his skin. Hannibal shrugs, and Will rolls his eyes. “We’re leaving evidence everywhere,” he says instead, trying to appeal to Hannibal’s irritating need for perfection, “This isn’t how we do things.”

Hannibal smiles. “This also isn’t _why_ we do things,” he points out, “We’re making an exception.”

This time, when Hannibal tugs on Will’s arm, he manages to sit up. He braces himself on the ground behind him with one hand, the other still warm in Hannibal’s own. There’s blood on his face, from the arterial spray when he opened the man’s throat with his knife, teeth bared and savage. It stains the white streaks in his beard in places a soft pink like blush wine.

He is still the most beautiful thing Hannibal has ever seen, and always will be. Will thinks time has changed so much, but for Hannibal, everything feels the same, as perfect as it has ever been.

Will is watches Hannibal watching him, his gaze shrewd and thoughtful. Hannibal doesn’t remember the last time he shied away from his eyes—sometime between when Will was locked away in Fredrick Chilton’s castle and what happened that night in Hannibal’s kitchen. Will looks at him and _through_ him, and Hannibal lets him, even when Will asks, “Have you ever considered it? At what point you’re going to be too old for this shit?”

Hannibal considers the question, his answer. His knees, folded as they are against the cold and unforgiving concrete, are undoubtedly beginning to ache. But the thrill is still running through his veins, the same as it has after every kill he’s ever made—from separating the heads of the men who killed Mischa from their shoulders, through time until this very moment, this very kill, felled by the hands of himself and the man he loves like so many more than he’s able to keep up with anymore.

“I never considered it,” he answers eventually, smoothing his thumb over Will’s knuckles, knowing without him having to say so that they ache from their clench around the handle of his knife—they always do.

“Didn’t think you’d live this long?” Will asks, voice deceptively light. Hannibal is as attuned to the tension in him, he can taste it, bitter on his tongue. “You mean you’ve never thought about it? How this will end?”

Hannibal searches his face—lined, scarred, a little weathered, but so beautiful it still makes Hannibal’s heart ache to look upon it. The time for lies and obfuscation passed them decades ago. Being honest with Will has always felt like a release that he longs for as much as he does for those they find in their bed, or with blood spilling thick and hot between them.

“I have spent our years together worried that it never began,” he says softly, eyes dropping to their joined hands. His thumb brushes against the wedding band he placed on Will’s finger all those years ago, the metal warm from the heat of Will’s body. “I have worried at length that I have imagined all of this—you, _us,” _he whispers, admitting before he can stop himself, “While you were away, I wandered through the empty vessel of our home and wondered if I hadn’t imagined you completely. If I wasn’t still languishing in the prison cell you put me in, lost in the aching emptiness of my memories.” He pauses, wets his lips, and raises his eyes to meet Will’s again, deep and stormy blue as the ocean that birthed them, and adds quietly, “It’s difficult to plan for the future, when you can’t quite believe your present is real.”

Will raises himself up on his knees and takes Hannibal’s face in his hands, brushing his thumbs against the crows feet set deeply in the corners of Hannibal’s eyes. “I’m real,” he whispers against Hannibal’s lips, softly and shakily, “You’re real. _This_ is real.” Hannibal kisses him then, oblivious to the body cooling beside them, with all the same desperation he always has, every time since the first time. Will always makes him feel like a man dying of thirst, finally offered a drink.

They try to pull each other closer, and end up laughing as they both groan as their aches flare up and make themselves known. They break apart to climb to their feet, bracing hands on each other’s shoulders as their knees pop and creak.

“This is real,” Will repeats, somehow just knowing Hannibal needs to hear it, still chuckling huskily as he flexes his aching muscles and drawls in good humor, “And I hate to break it to you, but we’re also _real_ old.”

*

They might be old, and tired, and very obviously nearing the end of their careers as serial killers, but Will has to admit they still put on one hell of a show.

Their tableau is, in a word, fucking gorgeous. Much more elaborate than they would have dared leave behind for just any old reason, but then again, the one most capable of recognizing their work has been burned and ground into dust. Will had chosen their prey, but Hannibal had chosen what they’d do with him, and it reeks of the Chesapeake Ripper, even more so Il Mostro.

They need to get the hell out of Italy, and soon.

But not before Will has a chance to commit the scene to memory. Hannibal had chosen a rendition of _Forseti Seated in Judgment_, based on the Norse god of justice, which Will thinks is rather on the nose even for him. The dead man is seated on a park bench and not a throne, but they’ve managed to make him look regal all the same, with his robes and his staff, his arm extended and pointing. Directly at them, where they stand at the moment, in accusation Will knows they have earned thousands of times over.

He closes his eyes, and easily brings forth an image of Jack—not as he was in the picture in the newspaper, but as he used to be, tall and dark and imposing. In his mind, Jack flanks him at one shoulder, and Hannibal as he was back then stands at the other in one of his pristine suits, face smoother and hair darker, but warm eyes alight with that same unbridled amusement he still carries with him today. It’s the first thing Will sees when he wakes up, the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes at night, knows it better than he knows the reflection of his own eyes when he sees them in the mirror.

“_What do you see_?” the image of Jack beside him asks, coaxing and impatient as he ever was.

“Finality,” Will answers out loud, “This is an ending.”

When he opens his eyes Hannibal—older, wrinklier, grayer, but all the more devastatingly handsome for it—is watching him with mild interest. He doesn’t ask where Will has been, but Will figures he already knows. It’s been a long time since Will got lost in his mind by himself. Just as Hannibal finds Will in the rooms of his mind palace, triumphant, Will finds Hannibal beside him now every time he wades into his stream. “Shall we say our goodbyes, then?” Hannibal asks gently.

Will nods and goes to his bag. Jack is in there, in a plastic bag, housed in a flimsy cardboard box with his name on it. Will takes out the ashes and walks to the edge of the bridge they stand on, where Hannibal told him Jack interred Bella’s ashes all those years ago and flung his wedding ring in the water along with her. Will hadn’t asked how Hannibal knew this, since it has always seemed Hannibal knows everything. He doesn’t know for sure if Hannibal saw it himself, spying from the shadows, or if he had paid eyes watching Jack. He assumes it was the former, since all he had really wanted to know was how Hannibal remembered this when he forgets so much else these days, but when asked Hannibal had only smiled serenely and told him he found the dramatic flare of the scene moving.

Amusing, is more like it. Hannibal has always been terribly amused by the way the ants crawl around, thinking their lives have purpose.

Will wonders if he shouldn’t say a few words. But in the end, he merely upends the bag, watching as the microscopic pieces of Jack Crawford float down from the bridge into the water to metaphorically join with the love of his life.

Then, he turns to look at his own.

“I’m terrified of you dying before me,” Will blurts out, voice hoarse and tight, the words he’s kept pent up for too long spilling out past his lips in the rush of rapids, “I’m terrified you’ll leave me, and go somewhere I can’t follow you this time.”

Hannibal only smiles. “Dearest,” he says mildly, “The last time you followed me anywhere was the last time we came here. I have been following you ever since.” Will huffs out a gruff laugh at the reminder of him sailing across the Atlantic to get here. Speaking of dramatics. Hannibal sighs and reaches for Will’s hand, thumb rubbing against the cool metal of his wedding ring. “It will probably happen, one day,” he allows, “I am older than you, after all.”

“I’ve lived harder,” Will argues weakly, “I’ve been shot twice, stabbed more times than I care to count anymore. Half my brain burned itself up. I spent a good twenty years one step away from being a full blown alcoholic. Half my life eating garbage, before you started feeding me.”

“So you’re hoping to die first, and leave _me_ alone?” Hannibal asks, tugging him gently closer. He peers down his nose at Will, then asks thoughtfully, “What would you have me do?”

Will cracks a small smile. “I guess I always assumed you’d eat me,” he replies.

Hannibal’s eyes twinkle with humor, golden in the glow of the streetlamps that reflect off of the water. “Hm,” he says, giving Will’s words thought as he links their arms together and begins to walk, leaving Jack’s effigy behind them. Hannibal squeezes Will’s bicep between his fingers and comments idly, “You might be a little gristly, now.”

Will laughs and pulls him closer, rests his temple against Hannibal’s shoulder as they walk—slowly, heeding the complaints of their old bones as they head back in the direction of the hotel.

It’s not lost on Will, as they cross the Uffizi gallery courtyard, that they’ve limped along this same path before. The only forgiveness between them now is genuine, bone deep. Dull now instead of sharp—from lack of use, from lack of necessity.

Hannibal has lamented many times over the years never being able to return to Florence, to show the city he so loved in his youth to Will as he wished to once upon a time, without knives and blood and brain-marinating soup between them. Will wonders if he’s enjoying the sights he thought he may never see again, sights that surely have faded around the edges with his waning memory. But when Will glances up, he finds that Hannibal isn’t looking at the sights at all, but instead watching him intently, always so intently. “You have been worrying about this for some time,” he remarks softly.

The lights catch in his eyes, making them look like they’re burning. “About how this will end? How _we_ will end?” he asks, and Hannibal nods. Will nods too, in answer to Hannibal’s own question. “I used to think we’d go out in a blaze of glory,” he says softly, admitting something he has never spoken aloud, not even back then when they were leaving their mark on the world, when he and Hannibal would fuck ravenously in a pool of some hapless soul’s blood instead of lying around groaning about aching joints in one. “Something like in the movies. A gun fight or something equally as dramatic. Or pull a Thelma and Louise,” he adds with a grin.

“Going over the side of one cliff in a lifetime is more than enough, my love,” Hannibal chides, but he’s smiling too.

“I guess you’re right,” Will admits, smile fading as he adds softly, “It didn’t matter to me how it happened. Just that when it happened, we went out together.”

Hannibal pulls them to a stop and turns to look down at Will, studying him. “We could, still,” he whispers, and Will can see that he’s plainly serious as he adds, “If that is what you want. We could tip off that young woman who took Jack Crawford’s place, Agent Sparrow—”

“Starling, Hannibal,” Will corrects gently.

“Agent Starling, then,” Hannibal agrees, as if he hadn’t forgotten, before repeating, “If that is what you want.”

Hannibal means it. He would end it all, if Will asked it of him. The power is as heady as it has always been, since Will learned how to wield it all those years ago, and just knowing he has the right to choose their ending makes him feel better, safer. Will reaches for the lapels of Hannibal’s suit jacket and hauls him in for a kiss, tasting his sway over him on his tongue.

From the other side of the road, a group of teenagers spill out of a closing bar, laughing at the sight of two old men making out on the street. Will laughs too, and kisses Hannibal again. “What I want,” Will whispers against his lips, “Is to go home. I miss our house. I miss our dogs.” Another deep, searing kiss. “I miss our bed.”

“And the rest?” Hannibal asks, a little breathless, even after all this time, even after what must be millions of kisses now, just like this one.

Will pulls back enough to look at Hannibal and shrugs. “Maybe we’ll die there and I won’t have to worry about it,” he supposes, “Fuck ourselves to death.”

Hannibal gives Will a wolfish grin, another thing that hasn’t changed a bit over the years. “_La mort d’amour_,” he purrs, and adds as he leans down to kiss Will again, “We can certainly try.”

Will kisses him back, laughing the whole time. He doesn’t know what he was so worried about anyway.

The good die young, or so they say. And if that’s even half true, chances are he and his husband are immortal.


End file.
